July 2004

[Image: Professor Igor Panarin's six-fold vision of a disintegrated United States; I love how it will precisely follow today's existing state lines – and that Kentucky will join the European Union].

In what sounds to be very obviously an act of wishful projection, a former KGB intelligence analyst turned public intellectual named Igor Panarin has explained to the Wall Street Journal that the United States only has about 18 months left to live. In the summer of 2010, it will "disintegrate" into six politically separate realms – and, conveniently for a thinker who clearly leans to the right, the borders of these realms will coincide with a new racial segregation. The fantasy of living amidst people who don't look like you will come to an end. Best of all, from Panarin's perspective, Alaska – Sarah Palin included, looking out with alarm from her office window – will "revert" to Russian control. Quoting at length:

[Prof. Panarin] predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

"People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right," the Wall Street Journal continues. Panarin then "cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union – 15 years beforehand. 'When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him,' says Prof. Panarin."In some ways, I'm reminded of Paul Auster's newest novel, Man in the Dark, in which a civil war has set multiple regions of the United States against one another and against the so-called Federal Army. Or, for that matter, there's also Rupert Thomson's Divided Kingdom in which the UK has been split up along emotional lines.But surely an ex-CIA operative, now milking the lecture circuit for all its worth, could also propose a realistic scenario in which the entire Russian east has been sold off, say, to a combination of Euro-American agribusiness firms and the Chinese government, who them embark upon an elaborate, generations-long act of industrial deforestation? Leaving Moscow a kind of irrelevant, feudal city full of Bulgari and handguns, its governmentally terrorized tower blocks populated almost entirely by unemployed and half-drunk retro-Stalinists? I don't mean to imply that I think the end of the United States is somehow politically unimaginable, but that, in a still-bipolar, post-Cold War international imagination, surely either side could convincingly outline the other's demise?

Comments are moderated.

If it's not spam, it will appear here shortly!

Anonymous said...

What about the whole notion of Cascadia? This russian guy has missed that Canada isn't fundamentally united either.

Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta for oil, hydro power, water, and wood; Washington and Oregon for manufacturing; Idaho for potatos (?); Nevada for hookers; and California for consumers and the entertainment industry.

I can't remember if you have written about it before, but the comic series DMZ by Brian Wood imagines a similar future for the USA - divided by civil war with Manhattan operating as a neutral demilitarized zone.

I am a bit behind on tge current story arc at the moment but I believe the island turns into it's own sovereign state further splitting the US.

Why sould this be the truth, amrica is young it exist know for 400 years, en why can it only be found in this internetpage and not over whole inter net, i have my doubts about this guy. amrica stay how it is know, god bless the usa.

Wow. "Sarah Palin included, looking out with alarm from her office window." Apparently this guy doesn't even know that Palin never said any such thing. Of course, he may, after consuming quantities of Obama flavored Kool Aid, believe that Tina Fey of SNL actually IS Sarah Palin. Hi-bye.

Hmm. Perhaps because the blog author is a typical morbid British guy. So he's still looking for things to stick it to the USA and pining about his country's long lost empire. Why yes if the states split Great Britain could rule a gain! Quite so chappies.

Sure, the Texas Republic under Mexican influence/control. No way that would happen with the current state of Mexican affairs and Texas/Southern pride. Mexico has enough trouble keeping their own territory stable.

I'm with Mike Laursen. It could happen, but not at all like this. This map looks as though it were made by someone who's only seen the US on maps, not someone even remotely familiar with US culture.

That Arizona would be in a group that includes Washington and Idaho rather than New Mexico is of course ludicrous. And why on earth would the part of the US that joins the EU extend so far south? South Carolina in the EU? That'll be the day.

The most interesting thing of course is the emotional response by the blog author (US, British or other?) and others here. Are we evaluating and examining the tentative theory of US splitting into 6 separate nations (according to the map) by 2010, or are we more interested in the fact that a Russian/ex-Soviet/former US-enemy "professor" claims this? Evidently Panarin hit a sensitive nerve, and achieved the only thing he was really looking for: provocative attention...

Canada is composed of the 10provinces and 3 territories that didn't make the 50 state cut...then there are the uncounted US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico...

hold on, Britain is pretty damn American these days, I know they'd like to believe it's visa versa.

Colorado by all means would be a California state, and Utah would be a sovereign state of the Mormons.

Russians...reminds of a stripper at Scores who couldn't understand why we wouldn't pay her for a lap dance, she kept saying "But I'm Russian." in a very bad ascent. grumpy, cold, and not even attractive, working at scores...yes strip for the capatists Russia.

It was quite sad/funny because the audience nearly laughed him out of the room. Strangely, over 10 years later, this type of breakdown seems mildly plausible. I wonder what the next 10 years will bring?

I would say at least the russian included the U.P. on his map. It's also funny how Americans are little less likely to laugh this off at the current state of of insecurity, but I think this is clearly a case of paying more attention to lines on a map than the people who live there.

i promise you that if the united states dissolve, the state of utah will most certainly not be controlled by california, and while mexico may fall under the control of texas, texas will most certainly not fall under the control of el distrito federal.

" 'When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him,' says Prof. Panarin.""

Heh heh heh. And my predictions are: people will continue to see Bigfoot; California will drop off into the Pacific after a major earthquake; and China's population will grow, leading to tension in the east.

I guess I'm the next "authority", never mind that some predictions are inevitable.

nations far greater than america have toppled over and all we have left of them are deserts and cities with no clout... maybe if a nations time is up, it is inevitable, that the nation drowns in its vanity, as did the great roman empire...so is america isnt an empire...great a nation as it may be, then it is possible...but not in 2010

Sounds like the new Russia is on the verge of collapse as well. Sighting statistical variables such as the disintegration of rule of law - like copyright law and plagiarism.

No one seems to have noticed that the good Mr. Panarin has stolen his idea from the same author he uses to reference 'his' idea! Namely Emmanuel Todd author of the 2001 book "After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order"

About BLDGBLOG

BLDGBLOG ("building blog") is written by Geoff Manaugh. The opinions expressed here are my own; they do not reflect the views of my friends, editors, employers, publishers, or colleagues, with whom this blog is not affiliated.